Saint Stephen’s Elementary School--Spring 1984. A group of 30 or so future lapsed catholics, myself included, return from April vacation. Sister Louise asks us to congregate at the front of the classroom. There, she goes around the group and asks every one of us if we had seen any movies over spring break....which is slightly unusual. I mean, we typically only ever talked about Jesus and other Jesusy-type things. What happened next was even more curious: almost every single kid said that they had seen the movie Splash (except Joey Garagiola...who said he had watched Hardcastle and McCormick...which is, of course, a television program. Sorry bro.) It was like the entire class had gone to see Splash together but didn’t invite me (or Joey G). “And what about you, Sarah? Did you see any movies last week?” Yes Sister...I saw Splash!” “Ohhh...how lovely!” Once she got to, like, the 18th kid I started to smell bullshit. “And how about you Matthew? Did you see any movies?” I’m thinkin’...if this kid says Splash I’m gonna hork up my PB&J! And he totally says Splash! And I’m like...yo sis...you already seem to know the answer...why not just ask if there’s anyone in the room who hasn’t seen Splash and let’s back to the stations of the cross or whatever. I mean...that’s what I said in my head, anyway. When she finally came to me I brought out the big guns. “And what about you, Danny Tebo?” “Oh...just a little film called Risky BUSINESS!!” (gasps...pearl clutching). “WELL!” said the nun, “don’t know if I like the sound of that!” Oh you don’t, do you!? She threatened to call my parents...which wouldn’t have moved the needle much as they were the ones who rented it for me. It’s funny to talk about now (I mean...is it?) but I was fairly upset at the time. No one likes to be the one kid left sitting on the bench. So I decided to take my anger out, not on my classmates, but on the film Splash. I did this by refusing to watch it. Take THAT, Splash!
This week I finally lifted my 36 year Splash embargo and I discovered that Splash is way, way dirtier than Risky Business! I realize this statement is probably false as Risky Business is rated R and is full of prostitutes and subway balling. But it is also completely free of bestiality...something that cannot be said of Splash. What happens is this: Splash opens with a flashback to an incident that occurred back in the 60’s in the waters off the coast of Cape Cod. Two young boys and their parents are on some sort of day cruise listening to some 5th rate J Geils Band knockoff play “Wooly Bully”. You know what song kindof rules? “Wooly Bully”. The older boy throws coins onto the ground so he can look up girl’s skirts. This type of shtick was totally PG and acceptable in 1984. Gah! The younger boy spends his time staring blankly into the water. And then...out of nowhere...he friggin’ jumps ship! Hey man...the band ain’t THAT bad! Underwater, he sees a mermaid...‘bout the same age as he is. Jumping into the water suddenly looks like a pretty solid idea! Unfortunately he’s a human person and cannot live more than a minute....minute and a half without oxygen. Someone pulls the kid to safety before he croaks. The mermaid is mad bummed. She cries.
Flash forward to the early 1980’s. Mr Overboard has grown up to be unserious-era Tom Hanks. Some of y’all younger readers might have a tough time believing this but there was a time when Tommy Hanks was just some schmo comedian that folks didn’t think too much of. I mean...he was FINE...but he wasn’t TOM HANKS, you dig? Now he’s the goodwill ambassador to the universe. He’s like Oprah but white and a dude. Splash was directed by Ron Howard, who would later team up with Hanks for Apollo 13...which is just like Splash but in outer space and with no mermaids. They also did Da Vinci Code together...which would have benefited by the inclusion of a couple dozen mermaids.
Anyway, this Hanks cat has done pretty well for himself. He’s got a thriving importing business in NYC, a BMW, and a phat spread in the upper west. His upskirting brother has grown into man who I cannot even look at without bursting into tears of joy, John Candy. Unfortunately, Candy drives an Iroc-Z (with T-tops) and writes for Penthouse and is still a total pervy creep. He’s a total lout, this brother. Early on the bros head to a wedding but Hanks has to go stag ‘cuz his girlfriend breaks up with him. I try to feel bad for the dude but the girlfriend is not an actual character in the movie sooo. Hanksy gets himself good and wedding drunk and pisses and moans to his brother about how he’s unlucky in love and how he’s gonna die alone and DUDE...you are like 26 years-old. Maybe pump the brakes on that dying alone shit. Candy doesn’t want to hear it either. He’s all “quitcha cryin’, Tommy! Let’s keep boozin’ and head to Rio!” Hanks says he wants to go to the Cape instead...so he does. He takes a taxi to a part of Cape Cod that is totally Montauk. He arrives on the beach to find some suspicious scientist played by Eugene Levy. Well hey Jim’s Dad! Whaddup Johnny Rose! Who doesn’t love the Lev? No one I want to know! I feel like this scientist character is up to no good...but we won’t find out for another five minutes or so. Hanks hires some local dude to bring him out to the island in his janky ass rowboat. The boat shits the bed and the local dude swims back to shore...which is a real pisser for our man Hanks as he never learned how to swim. So what does he do? Grows his beard mad long and befriends a volleyball, naturally. Seriously though, he falls into the water and is knocked unconscious. He wakes up on the beach completely not dead. I call bullshit on this. Before he can get his bearings a naked goddess with crimped blonde hair jumps out of the bushes and makes out with him...but also steals his wallet. Here I’d like to note that I woke up ferociously hungover on a beach in Wellfleet once and the EXACT same thing happened to me. Actually, what really happened was I woke up to the sight of a strange Australian dude taking a piss. He tuned around and asked if I had any weed, mate. It was 6 AM. I did not have any weed.
The blonde is, of course, a mermaid...and I’d bet my every last dollar that she’s the same mermaid that the kid saw at the beginning of the movie. What are the odds there are TWO mermaids off the coast of Cape Cod. Also--what are the odds that the mermaid grows up to look like DARYL HANNAH!? What if she grew up to look like, I don’t know, Anne Ramsey? We’d have a totally different flick right here. You know--Daryl Hannah is currently married to Neil Young and also once dated Jackson Browne. Her Tinder profile says “looking for a man who can write songs. I mean...like...REALLY good songs. Like...the best songs ever written-type songs.” So the mermaid takes the wallet to her underground crib, which is pretty decked out (maps on the walls...a table...free WiFi). She figures this Hanks fella must live in NYC based on his driver’s license and whatnot...so she swims up to the Statue of Liberty (give me your tired, your poor. your most attractive mermaids). She hops out on Ellis Island bareass naked (did I mention that her mermaid fin goes away when she’s dry and she grows land legs? Well...she does). You get to see some bum and a little side boob and YOU really thought this movie was appropriate for first graders, Sister Louise!? I’d ask her myself but she was 76 in 1984...which would make her 112 now. I’m gonna go with “there was never a VCR in the convent during her lifetime.”
The mermaid is promptly arrested for indecent exposure. She can’t really tell the police all that much because she is NOT HUMAN. This is a fish-out-of-water comedy in the most literal sense possible. So she can’t understand words or anything else but she has Tom Hanks’ wallet so, instead of sending her up to Bellevue for a psych evaluation, they give dude a call. Hanksy rushes down to the precinct and he’s super jazzed that they’ve got this naked blonde lady waiting for him, natch. And he should be jazzed ‘cuz this gal is D...T...F!!!! They don’t even make it up to his apartment without stopping to ball in the elevator first. I know that lady and the mutant fish monster in The Shape of Water did some serious fucking...but I think Hanks and Hannah might have them beat. These two...they have some SESSIONS! “Oh my god!” Hanks gasps, “you’re gonna put me in the hospital!” From sex. The Shape of Water won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Splash was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (no shit). Those Academy members--they love to peep humans copulating with fish. Tom Hanks does not appear to be at all concerned that this woman is A--a complete stranger and B--cannot speak words.
Eventually Hanks has to go back to the office and make a living. The mermaid slips out of his apartment and heads straight to Bloomingdale’s because it’s the 1980’s and people be shoppin’! She charges a grillion dollars to TH’s Diner’s Club card and then learns how to speak English by watching three hours of Richard Simmons on TV or some such bullshit. When Hanks finally tracks her down she explains in her new English words that she can only stay with him until the next full moon. Then she must leave...never to return! She also tells him her name is Madison because she saw it on a street sign. Hanks is down to roll with the punches and get to what’s real...but later that night Madison draws herself a bath and her mermaid bottom comes back like PATOW! Hanks tries to force his way into the bathroom like a real asshole jerk and Madison is all like “humina humina don’t come it I got my period!” Luckily there’s a hair dryer nearby and apparently, if you blow dry your mermaid fin, it turns back into normal human legs. Knowing=half the battle.
So these two are in love and as happy as a couple of clams (or a man and a fish). They hit the town for a sweet early 80’s NYC montage; they watch Don Mattingly crack a few at Yankee Stadium, they check out The Clash at Bond’s, they dodge bullets from Bernie Goetz on the subway, they dine at Windows on the World where Madison consumes an entire lobster...shell and all. Hanks plays racquetball with John Candy, who smokes cigarettes and drinks beer the entire time. Hanks tells him that he’s in love and wants to marry Madison. Candy feigns a heart attack...which might be funny if he didn’t actually die of a heart attack at age 43. Goddamn I miss that guy.
Madison agrees to marry Hanks but...remember how I told you that Eugene Levy was in this movie and that he’d come up again? He totally does. Turns out he’s a fledgling scientist trying to make a name for himself by capturing an actual mermaid. So he’s the bad guy...but he isn’t really all that bad...bad guy-wise. The second half of the movie is draggy as shit. Levy follows the happy couple all around NYC trying to spray water on Madison so she’ll turn back into a fish. There’s this running gag where he keeps spraying water on the wrong couple that’s like a 3 out of 10 on the chuckle scale. Eventually everyone attends a gala where the President of the United States is supposed to give a speech (and it’s just some nameless rando dude and not Ronnie Reagan). Levy gets his shot and Madison goes full mermaid and Hanks just stands there staring like Whoooo Teeee Fahhhh??? The government kidnap Madison and talk about filleting her so they can study mermaid anatomy or whatever whatever. Levy does and about-face and decides to help Hanks steal Madison back from the government....because Johnny Rose is a solid ass dude like that!
Hanks takes Madison on a car chase through the Meatpacking District and shit is looking grim. They’ve got helicopters and swat teams and the army/navy game and Shriners and the Guardian Angels looking for these motherfuckers. They finally reach a dock above the Hudson and Madison tells him that he’s welcome to come with, right, but he won’t be able to return. She also reveals that she is the mermaid that she saw when she was a child...which is the most shocking reveal since that lady had a dick at the end of The Crying Game. She jumps in the drink and he chews it over for like 13 seconds and then belly flops into the water after her. See, but he’s a human person so he promptly dies...but Madison kisses him on the mouth and he comes back to life and they beat the shit out of like 20 police divers. They swim off together and immediately find an enchanted world full of wonderful, colorful schools of fish and coral and aren’t they in the HUDSON RIVER!? Shouldn’t they be swimming through fields of garbage and stolenDatsuns and putrid remains of Gambino crime family victims? The credits start to roll and they swim on and on and Tom Hanks does not sprout a fish tail...which is a giant friggin’ gyp if you ask me. You should watch all of the credits, though, because they eventually end up at some crazy North Pole looking village (would it be the South Pole since it’s on the ocean floor?) That’s the end....or is it!? There’s long been talk of a reboot. Or maybe a hybrid movie where Tom Hanks crashes his plane into the Hudson and gets ninja fucked by mermaids called Sully’s Splash? I don’t know about all that....but I do know that if you are trying to decide whether to show your first grader Splash or Risky Business I would still recommend the latter. The end.